Tag Archive | "Anonymous"

Anonymous is going nuclear after the death of Aaron Swartz, which was provoked by the prosecutorial abuse of Carmen Ortiz and other government officials who wanted to make an example of him. Anonymous is promising releases of docuements which they say will be very damaging to the government and the shadow government.

Hacktivist organization, Anonymous, is threatening perhaps their biggest play ever: a massive WikiLeaks-style exposure of sensitive U.S. government secrets. . As proof of their power, they announced details of the plan on hacked government website, the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC.gov). Citing the recent death of free information activist Aaron Swartz, they explain, “With Aaron’s death we can wait no longer. The time has come to show the United States Department of Justice and its affiliates the true meaning of infiltration.”

What we’re learning here is that there’s a serious flaw in how Anonymous works. By being so amorphous and disparate, there is no control over the members of the group. Incidents like this can easily happen because there’s nobody watching the hen house.

This telling example demonstrates one of the oldest splits on the left, that of centralized authority (Marxist) vs decentralized groups (anarchist.) The Marxist approach can lead to rigidity and calcification, while the anarchist approach can mean no one is really in charge. While Anonymous is more libertarian than left or right, this certainly applies to them and their anarchist organization style.

Usually the authorities infiltrate a group by starting with low-ranking members then moving their way up the food chain. This time they apparently began with the head of LulzSec “the de facto King of Anonymous” and he sang like a birdie to save himself from prison.

That’s right—the man who helped the internet celebrate #FuckFBIFridays was doing so from an FBI desk. But only after the feds wielded Sabu’s children against him

He’s a single dad and didn’t want to leave his two children on their own after pleading guilty to more than ten charges. Before you condemn, consider that many probably would have done the same…

To effectively reform the system that has enslaved us, we must consider following the advice and example of those who have preceded us. Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and JFK are good places to start. All took fierce positions against central banking, government corruption and corporate power.

The time has come for us to unite, the time has come for us to stand up and fight! You are Anonymous!

A few of their grievances and demands.

A starting point for reform could be established by citing a list of worthy objectives provided by ampedstatus.com;

These are the important issues. It’s time to forget the inane squabbling between the two parties on what is mostly social issue. Instead, we need to focus and organize on the rampant corruption in Wall Street and D.C. Our two party system is mostly a pretense while politicians and corporatists cycle back and forth between business and government, siphoning off what they can grab in the process.

This video was posted by Anonymous. They are planning something major and it’s aimed directly at Wall Street. Let’s not forget when private security / gov’t spook company HBGary recently boasted they could take down Anonymous, they ended up getting disemboweled by Anonymous instead, who broke into their supposedly secure servers and distributed their highly incriminating email everywhere.

“Mainstream media in the United States is the most efficient weapon of mass oppression. The propaganda system is so extensive. There is so much divide and conquer rhetoric.”

But what, they say, if one million people clogged downtown Manhattan around Wall Street and said we’re not leaving until the banks are broken up? Indeed.

I’ve been remiss on posting about the escalating HBGary scandal. They’re a shadowy cybersecurity company who pitched clients like BofA on how they could destroy Wikileaks for them. Their CEO boasted they could take down Anonymous and instead the company got their head handed to them on a platter.

Last week, the hacker group Anonymous released more than 40,000 of HBGary Federal’s emails, followed by another 27,000 from its sister company, HBGary, over the weekend. Those files, stolen in retaliation for an attempt by HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr to penetrate Anonymous and identify its members, revealed a long list of borderline illegal tactics.

They had tentacles everywhere (I say “had” as the company is probably toast. Who would want to do business with a supposed security company that is so tainted and more important, couldn’t even secure their own website?)

No matter how paranoid you are, the bastards are always doing more than you think they are. How many other, presumably more competent HBGary’s are out there, doing disinfo and character assassination at the behest of corporate clients?

This change in tactics shows increasing sophistication and could actually hit much harder than symbolic shutting down of websites. LOIC is “Low Orbit Ion Cannon,” which is open source software used in DDOS attacks.

This new mission, apparently, is to actually read the cables Wikileaks has published and find the most interesting bits that haven’t been publicized yet, then publicize them.

In my opinion, this action would have far more positive impact. Anonymous often repeats the Orwell quote, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” Looks like they decided to take those words to heart.

The Anonymous hacktivist group behind Operation Payback had its main Twitter account and Facebook pages taken away on Wednesday and has since the been decentralized in it’s social media efforts. This however didn’t stop one of the splinter accounts from tweeting out the below release, stating that the group essentially did not want to injure the companies targeted, but in fact wanted to “raise awareness.”